Visions for management and leadership

Reports

sign of an organization’s overall information production activity, are examples of the new types of information-oriented job which are being created. The future prospects for libraries are less promising. National library services will find it constantly harder to maintain services because of reduced support and funding, and will be obliged to seek full cost recovery for services supplied. In the public library sector, ‘basic provision’ of some kind will continue to be free, but the inevitable growth in charging for value-added services will meet competition from private entrepreneurs. Academic libraries will be under increasing financial pressure, and the numbers of full-time staff will continue to decline. A more positive (some would say alarming) note is contained in the notion that, towards the end of the decade, we may be able to browse electronically in a

Visions

for management

remote rowing

library

offering

electronic

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bor-

and teledelivery.

Where now? sections of the One of the concluding report contarns recommendations for future action, aimed at the research community, the information industry, the training sector and others. Another section attempts to draw out the key messages for the library and information science professions, which will inevitably be affected-or possibly transformed-by the developments predicted. The bulk of the report remains a rich quarry of forecasts prepared by expert consensus, for a wide range of areas, which merit analysis and interpretation of their potential impact across the full spectrum of information handling activities.

and leadership

Sinikka Salmi

On August 15-l 6 1990, in Turku, Finland, the Finnish Society for Futures Studies (FSFS) arranged its summer congress in cooperation with the Turku School of Economics, Centre for Continuing Education. The main aim of the congress, entitled ‘Future visions on management and leadership’, was to promote discussion concerning the challenges of future management and the qualifications managers will need in the future, as well as the inevitable, rapid changes in working circumstances.

The congress was a forum for both Finnish businesspeople and leaders and researchers as well as the members of the Finnish Society for Future Studies, which was celebrating its 10th anniversary. The speakers represented both international and Finnish experts on futures studies and management issues. Delegates were pleased to listen to introductions given by following foreign

Sinnikka Salmi is at the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Rehtorinpellonkatu 3, 20500 Turku, Finland.

FUTURES

January/February 1991

experts: Riane Eisler (Centre for Partnership Studies, California), Eleonora Masini (World Futures Studies Federation); Jim Dator (University of Hawaii) and Ervin Laszlo (Vienna Academy for the Study of the Future). Finnish experience and knowledge in futures studies and management was represented by Torsti Kivisto (FSFS) and professors of the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration, Pentti Malaska, Raimo Nurmi and Tapio Reponen. The opening session was given by Torsti Kivisto, the new president of FSFS. Kivisto referred in his speech to those

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tremendous challenges which humankind will face tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. Rapid changes in environmental reality and in organizational communities are leading to unexpected new situations and new challenges in society. Kirvisto predicted: ‘The variety of the future alternatives is incredibly numerous. The most pessimistic expectations result in total environmental catastrophe. On the contrary, according to optimistic visions there is going to be a global, equal, human and natural union of the world.’ According to Kivisto there is only one solution to the complex organizational problems-the partnership between men and women. An optimistic view of the future was represented by Jim Dator, president of the World Futures Studies Federation. He began by saying: ‘What a fantastic time it is to be alive! What an opportunity we futurists have!’ He referred to the challenges of the future in terms of waves and tides and voyages-perhaps because of where he lives, Hawaii: ‘I see the future as rushing towards us on gigantic tsunamis or what used to be mistakenly called in English “tidal waves”.’

Main topics Partnership and cooperation between men and women was one of the leading themes of the congress. Riane Eisler in particular dealt widely with questions of equality in solving the big problems in organizations. According to Eisler we are moving towards a fundamentally redesigned workplace, one that nurtures human development and promotes partnership rather than dominator human relations. Eilser pursued this point ‘integral to this redesigned by saying, workplace is what we may call a partnership rather than a dominator style of worker management, emphasizing motivation rather that coercion.’ In this kind of workplace, so-called softer and styles are feminine management rewarded. The other leading theme of the congress was new visions of management. Two speakers especially focused on this topic. Sten-Olof Hansen, President of the Turku Chamber of Commerce,

pointed out the necessity ive management in his

of new creatpresentation,

‘Unfolding creativity: the key element of leadership’. Hansen showed ways towards this aim based on his own successful business experience. Pentti Malaska, the present Secretary General of World Futures Studies Federation, described with his research colleague a thorough study of change in the views of strategic management among large European companies. Malaska also described a new approach in strategic management called ‘the multiple scenario approach’, which has been developed by the research group of the Turku School of Economics and Business Administration. Raimo Nurmi cited in his introduction the phrase coined by Ansoff and others in 1976: ‘From strategic planning to strategic management’. Nurmi asserted that today we should move from strategic planning to strategic thinking, which as an organizational process would lead by way of strategic interaction to strategic learning of the whole organization. The responsibility of the managers in environmental questions was also a main concern among researchers. Ervin Laszlo dealt with this subject in his introduction. He emphasized the speed of changes today and especially tomorrow: we are now living through a transition from nationally based industrial societies to an interconnected post-industrial socioeconomic system. This transition is taking place faster than ever before in the history of humankind. Laszlo stated in forcible words that ‘in the course of the last decades, time has telescoped. The future is upon us before we could realize that the past has disappeared’. The responsibility of facing the challenge of the present transition confront all peoples and all sectors, and Laszlo believes it confronts the business community in particular. The business community cannot wait on the sidelines while the future of the future is being decided. As the actor, business leadership has to accept the epochal challenge of steering the evolutionary process that currently holds humankind in its grip. Laszlo referred to leadership responsibility as the price of the unique power and influence of the private sec-

FUTURES January/February 1991

Reporfs/Book reviews

tor in today’s world: the decisions of business executives affect not only the businesses and markets in which they function, but reverberate much more widely. Laszlo concluded his speech by the hopeful assessment that: ‘Today’s business executives can be more than efficient managers of the status quo: they can be effective evolvers of the

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human condition. In the many group sessions urganin the congress participants ized deepened their understanding of the issues by discussions and interaction with each other. The findings of the group sessions were reviewed in a collage charted by a leading expert in leadership questions, Matti Fe&one%

BOOK REVtEWS Fruits of biotechnology

for the Third World

Martin Greefey The Gene Hunters: Biotechnology Scramble for Seeds

and the

Calestous Juma xiv + 288 pages, f29.95 hb, f10.95 pb (London, Zed Books, 1989) 3iotech~o~og~ Revolution and the Third Worfd: Challenges and ~oticy Options

RIS x + 451 pages, $50.00 (New Delhi,

Research and Information System for the Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries, -1989)

Both of these books are welcome additions to the mushrooming literature on biotechnology and the developing countries. They provide well articulated and insightful analysis of the threats and opportunities that biotechnology presents to developing countries and they do so with evident commitment, sometimes even passion. Their commentary, particularly un the dominant role of transnational corporations (TNCs), on patenting of life forms and on the changes in comparative advantage likely to emerge from existing biotechnology R&D investment patterns, is incisive and These books challenge pugnacious, Martin Greeley is at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, Brighton BN79RE. UK.

FUTURES January/February 1991

readers to reject conventional econamic perceptions on the process of technological innovation and to recognize how the political and economic interests of developed countries in large measure determine the t~chnologicai trajectory of biotechnological innovation. They are part of an emerging consensus on the critical need for developing country and public international bodies to respond more vigorously, more coherently and more substantially to a technological chaflenge which many perceive as the block for economic major building growth in the next century. Biotechnology Revolution World is a compilation

and

the

of papers requested by Research and Information System for the Non-Aligned and Other Developing Countries fRIS) from a mixed group-academic, interest group, NGO, international agency-of specialists on biotechnology and developing countries. This provides a refreshing alternative to much of the ‘opinionforming’ literature which emanates from within the industry or from analysts employed by the private corporate sectar. The book is divided into three parts: the development potential; Third World concerns; and options and strategies. It is noteworthy that this third topic, which is really the developing country agenda Third